Evolution and Racism

An abysmal chapter in the history of evolutionary thought involves the
notion that certain races weren't quite as advanced as others. Consider the
complete title of Darwin's famous book: "The Origin of Species by Natural
Selection" with the subtitle, "The Preservation of Favored Races in the
Struggle for Life". By this he meant human races as well as animal
subspecies.

In the 1800's the scientific community believed that Negroes were lower on
the evolutionary chain that Caucasians. Not only were Darwin and Thomas
Huxley racists, but virtually all the leading evolutionists and
anthropologists - Osborn, Hooton, Hrdlicka, and Haeckel. (Morris 1989, 61,
63) Consider this quote:

     "The Negroid stock is even more ancient that the Caucasian and
     Mongolian, as may be proved by an examination not only of the
     brain, of the hair, of the body characters, such as teeth, the
     genitalia, the sense organs, but the instincts, the intelligence.
     The standard of intelligence of the average adult Negro is
     similar to that of the eleven-year-old youth of the species Homo
     Sapiens." (Henry Fairfield Osborn, "The Evolution of Human
     Races", Natural History Jan/Feb 1926. Reprinted in Natural
     History 89 (April 1980):129) (Morris, 1989, 62)

H. F. Osborn was the most prominent American anthropologist of the first
half of the twentieth century and director of the American Museum of
National History. These remarks were not based on innate prejudice, but on
the evolutionary science of the day. (Morris, 1989, 62)

The idea that some races had progressed further than others was
rationalized by Ernst Haeckel's "recapitulation theory" or "ontogeny
recapitulates phylogeny" where stages of embryonic development express the
evolutionary sequence. Here the activities of children (of advanced races)
were equated to the activities of adults of the lower races. (Morris 1989,
61, 62)

It should be noted that today anthropologists agree that the different
human races have a common origin - a Biblical doctrine. (Morris 1989, 64)

References:
(Morris 1989, 60-68).

Continue with: Evolution and Racism: Bodysnatching

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